JOAN GUEST1Joan Guest is author of Forgiving Your Parents (IVP) and is a candidate for the M.S.W. degree and an intern at a community counseling center.
Most Christians don’t know how to relate to those experiencing a divorce. We know that families undergoing marital breakup experience much pain, but we don’t know what to say to them or what they need. Beneath it all, we harbor a fear that if we help divorcing people we will be tacitly condoning divorce.
So in many cases we do nothing. “It’s a big need, and we want to help,” one church secretary told me. “But we haven’t yet had time to put together a program.” Judith Wallerstein, author with Sandra Blakeslee of Second Chances: Men, Women, and Children a Decade After Divorce, studied the long-term effects of divorce in 60 families. She reported that half the families belonged to a church or synagogue. Yet not one member of the clergy came to visit during the divorce. While the experience of the families in Wallerstein’s study is typical, some forward-looking churches are giving help to broken families in their midst. We can learn from those churches’ efforts. But first, we must understand the ways in which divorce affects family members.
The Children’S Perspective
It is often the children who suffer most. They do not perceive the marriage the way their parents do. Many are completely surprised to hear that their parents did not get along. Others knew of the problems but would rather live with them than lose a parent.
Wallerstein writes, “Divorce is a different experience for children and adults because the children lose something that is fundamental to their development—the family structure.… When that structure collapses, the children’s world is temporarily without supports. And children, with a vastly compressed sense of time, do not know that the chaos is temporary.”
People used to believe that divorce was a short-lived crisis. The conventional wisdom said that if we leave the children alone, they will “get over it” in a few months or a year. But research has shown this to be wrong. Divorce is a long-term crisis. A quarter or more of these children may develop major, lasting problems.
Poor Self-Esteem
Children’s problems fall into three major categories. First and foremost, some children of divorce grow up with low self-esteem, tending toward depression, anxiety, and maladjustment. Younger children particularly blame themselves for their parents’ separation. A child who believes she caused the goldfish to die when she jiggled the bowl may well think that Daddy moved out because she thought mean things about him.
Even older children will blame themselves when they have heard their parents fighting over child rearing. School-aged children often think their parents’ marriage disintegrated because they misbehaved. Then their attempts to reconcile their parents fail. The feelings of guilt, blame, and helplessness foster low self-esteem.
In addition, children of divorce often feel rejected. Some divorced parents become severely depressed and unable to care for themselves, much less their children. Other parents’ attention may be riveted on the legal settlement, ongoing financial problems, and work. Jason and Cherri’s parents got divorced when Jason was seven and Cherri ten. Their mother had never worked full-time, but she immediately took a job. She could not afford child care, so Cherri was expected to get Jason ready for school in the morning and watch him in the afternoon. When Jason was sick, Cherri, not her mother, stayed home with him.
Their dad visited regularly at first, but slowly the visitation deteriorated into a phone call or two a month and a visit on holidays. Jason and Cherri took this personally, believing he didn’t want to see them. Both kids struggled with feelings that their parents had abandoned them.
Other kids get caught in the middle of parental conflict. “Mom and Dad argued each time he came to pick us up,” said Bridgette, whose parents divorced when she was eight. “I often wondered if it was worth it. They could never speak to each other without getting into an argument. If my mom wanted to know when the check was coming, one of us had to call. Eventually my brother refused to do the calling, so I had to do it. Now I have my own apartment, and my mother still calls me to ask me to call my dad about something.”
A parent’s angry statement may be directed at the other parent but indirectly involves the child: “If your father really cared about you, he’d send the check on time.” Psychologist E. Mavis Heatherington is a well-known researcher on children of divorce. She and others have shown that ongoing conflict has a very detrimental effect on children’s development. The effects can last a lifetime.
Intimate Relationships
Difficulty in establishing lasting relationships is another common problem. Many children of divorce fear commitment. Some have seen a parent betrayed by a spouse who seemed loving and committed. Others fear falling in love with someone “like my mom” or dad. They lack role models of long-term and successful marriages, so they make poor marital decisions or no decision at all.
Children of divorce may also manifest insecure sexual identities. Boys need role models for masculinity. If they seldom see their fathers, they may miss out on a close relationship with a grown man. Girls need an attentive father to make them feel valued as women. Teenaged girls who seldom see their fathers may seek male affirmation elsewhere, becoming sexually promiscuous or flitting from relationship to relationship.
Underachievement
Finally, children of divorce may become underachievers. Economic hardship, emotional upheaval, frequent relocations, and lack of a parent at home to encourage hard work sometimes add up to lowered success in school. Because these kids lack self-esteem, they may find it hard to venture into challenging academic programs. They have little support for experimentation or trial and error. But that is often what it takes to excel.
When these kids reach college age, the divided family may be unable to help them with finances. Many fathers, even if they have faithfully paid child support up to age 18, stop payments immediately when the legal arrangements allow it. Most do not help with college expenses. But many schools require that children provide both custodial and noncustodial parents’ incomes on financial-aid applications.
Every One Different
Of course, not all children of divorce suffer significant problems. Children respond in different ways to a marital breakup. Some, because of their own resilience or a parent’s sensitivity, seem to suffer not at all.
It is fairly well established that, at least during childhood, girls tend to fare better than boys. The age of the child at the time of divorce also matters. Preschoolers often respond dramatically at first, deeply grieving over the loss of the noncustodial parent and regressing to wetting the bed or having temper tantrums. But later in life these youngsters seem to recover better, with few lasting memories of the divorce. Older siblings, on the other hand, may suffer for years with memories of shouting matches and police visits.
Children in the elementary school years—ages six to twelve—seem to respond with the most long-term grief and depression. Unlike older adolescents, who may have strong peer-support systems, these kids are still quite dependent on the family for their sense of security. Also, children entering adolescence have special needs that a family in turmoil may be unable to meet.
Adolescents are often the most verbal about the divorce. They tend to react with anger at both parents for not keeping the marriage together. But they usually do not take responsibility for the divorce upon themselves.
These dreary consequences of divorce should remind us of the importance of strengthening marriages. Yet in today’s society, nothing we do will totally prevent divorce. However, much can be done to spare innocent children the effects of family breakup.
In ministering to the children, our first concern should probably be for the custodial parent, usually Mom. The authors of The Difficult Divorce feel strongly that a child’s adjustment to divorce is directly related to how well the custodial parent adjusts.
Support groups can prove invaluable. When Cindy and her husband separated, their three teenage children felt angry, hurt, and deserted. Cindy felt ashamed and isolated. “I’m the only one,” she thought.
Cindy’s priest referred her to a support group drawing people from several local parishes. “That was the best thing that ever could have happened to me,” she says now. She met women who have become her best friends. They knew what she was going through.
Getting churches to cooperate in such a program can be difficult, yet few churches are large enough to support a single-parents’ ministry by themselves. Willow Creek Community Church in a Chicago suburb is an exception. This congregation of 14,000 has a seven-part ministry called Rebuilders, which cares for children and adults who have experienced a loss through death or divorce. Mike Marrano, associate director of Rebuilders, says that their two key programs are the workshop and support group for adults and the GRASP ministry (God Reaching All Single Parents), which teaches effective parenting and offers activities for kids. Child care is provided for all events, an essential service since few single parents have the money or energy to hire a sitter.
In ministering to children of divorce, our first concern should be for the custodial parent—usually Mom. A child’s adjustment to divorce may be directly related to how well the custodial parent adjusts
Children, too, need emotional support. Part of Rebuilders is a buddy ministry, providing big brothers and sisters to children in single-parent homes. Older children also benefit from their own support group. Many echo their parents: “I’m the only one going through this.” “It’s all my fault.” “Life will never be good again.” A peer-support group led by someone knowledgeable could help them to regain a sense of balance and control.
Beyond emotional support, children of divorce need goods and services. Many divided families struggle to stay afloat financially. Lenore Weitzman in A Divorce Revolution cites statistics showing that divorced women with minor children experience an average 73 percent decline in their standard of living during the first year after divorce. Meanwhile, their husbands enjoy an average 42 percent rise.
Social scientists speak of the feminization of poverty. Much of this is related to divorce. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for families headed by a white female is over 28 percent; for families headed by a black female, over 53 percent. Food and housing can be one key way for churches to help single parents and their children.
Missing Dads
Churches can also help by facilitating kids’ relationships with their noncustodial parent, usually Dad. We can encourage divorced husbands to fulfill their child-support obligations, for example. According to the U.S. census, almost one-third of women entitled to child-support payments received less than the amount ordered, while another one-quarter received nothing at all. The church ought to be appalled by such statistics. First Timothy 5:8 says, “If anyone does not provide for … his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (NIV). Says one therapist and single mother, “What we have in North America is an abdication of men from fatherhood.”
It is understandable, however, that fathers resent making payments for children they seldom see. Without daily or at least weekly contact, fathers lose touch with their children’s lives. Thus, if a son aced an English exam or a daughter was asked to run as class treasurer, Dad finds out about it long after the excitement has passed, if at all. Lack of contact creates an emotional moat between father and children.
When Ed and his wife divorced, their son, Wayne, was seven. For the first few years the parents shared custody, the boy spending half the week with one parent and half with the other. Ed was grieved when his ex-wife decided to move out of state, taking Wayne with her. But unlike many fathers, Ed committed himself to the difficult task of staying in touch. He talks to his son twice a week by phone. They visit regularly, and Ed frequently sends cards and small gifts.
Ed is the exception, however. Most noncustodial fathers do not keep in regular contact with their kids. In one study, 50 percent of the children had not seen their fathers in the past year. Only 16 percent saw their fathers regularly.
Churches can help fathers by providing activities for them and their children—variations on the old daddy-daughter banquets. Support groups can encourage noncustodial fathers who must learn to relate anew to their children. And churches can praise fathers who fulfill their responsibilities well. “What about the little guy who works his butt off and never gets ahead because he’s paying for two families?” one angry father chided me. “The statistics don’t tell you anything about him.” But our churches can give him the kudos he deserves.
Justice
Perhaps there is one final way that churches can help the children of divorce—by becoming their advocates in the legislature. Churches should support legislative efforts to encourage responsible parenting, including laws designed to collect delinquent child-care payments. Laws helping working mothers with child-care expenses, and allowing mothers to stay at home with their children also deserve support. Badly needed as well are programs providing inexpensive housing for needy families.
God did not desert the single mothers of the Bible. Abraham reluctantly sent away his concubine, Hagar, and her son, Ishmael (Gen. 21:8ff). But he did so only after God promised to look after them: “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant.… I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring” (NIV). When Ishmael cried out for water in the desert, God responded to Hagar: “Do not be afraid.… Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” So should we take the hands of the hurting children in our midst and lead them to the well of God’s healing.
